The Theory of Friends

I got 403 friends on Facebook, that of course means real friends, close friends, friends of friends, family friends, coworkers, acquaintances, people I don’t really know but I’ve seen around, some people that I may actually dislike (very few though), and the list goes on. But in reality, I always seemed to have a sort of 1 close friend ever which is variable depending on my position in life at the moment, and some which are constant across several years. I have close friends and old friends and close friends who are old friends (or is it the other way around?).
I have also had my share of friends lost and friends forgotten. I say good riddance to some, I regret losing some, and some friendships are just broken beyond repair. There were times in my life when I went around without friends at all (I’m talking about the real deal not the Facebook people); if I needed to talk, there was no one there to talk back (the mirror worked fine then), and there was nothing to listen to, just the voices in my head. And since some of the lost friends were gone with some bloodshed, at some point in life, I made the decision to not have any close friends; the mirror still worked fine, and the voices kept me busy when there was no mirror around. I made this decision to save everyone a lot of blood, and to save whatever I had left of it running through my veins. But I guess that didn’t work all that well either. This is where I came up with The Theory of Friends. I don’t think that I am the only one who has reached that conclusion, in fact I know I am not the only one who has reached that conclusion, but I’ll still explain it all the same.

• Friends are nice to have.
  
  
• Friends are HIGHLY overrated.
  
• A person should have as many friends as they can.
  
  
• A person should maintain the friendships since they naturally die out of neglect like plants.
  
  
• A person should share their friends’ pains and pleasures, be happy for them when happiness is due, and be supportive when support is due.
  
  
• A person should watch God in dealing with their friends or otherwise karma will definitely bite the person where the person doesn’t want to be bitten.
  
  
• A friend can be as close as someone whom the person talks to every day, someone whose company the person enjoys, someone the person goes to in their time of need, or just someone who will get the person’s back before the person even tells them that they need their back covered.
  
  
• A person should always excuse a friend, accept their excuses, and even make some up for them if they haven’t presented any, but the person does not necessarily need to be convinced of the excuse since they are people and not all people know how to have good excuses.
  
  
• A person should be grateful to those people who are there when you most need them whether or not they are considered close friends or not, because if they care enough to be there, then they’re definitely worth keeping in that drawer right next to your bed. As a side note, those have been Ahmed Mostafa (Eini), Omar Nouh (Miro), and Bishoy Beshara (B) for my latest dilemma, and if some of them weren’t close friends before, they definitely are now.
  
  
• A person should not forget the people who were there at different times of need other than the last one and for any reason whatsoever have failed to be there at a particular time, for me that was Nehal Mahmoud (nounou), my oldest friend of 14 years.
  
  
• A person should celebrate the people who have come into their lives for short periods of time yet have been an enormous source of support in times of need; that would be Hala Marzouk (lolo).
  
  
• A person must always tolerate and accept a friend as they are, they should not change them unless it is something that the person has convinced the friend is worth changing, and they should not judge them because the person knows that friends are only human after all.
  
  
• If a friend does a move that makes the person go berserk, then the person should choose to either remove that friend from the bedside drawer, or choose to keep them there but on the “to-remove” list.
  
  
• A person must not go over the above mentioned move over and over because it is pointless to do so.
  
  
• A person must enjoy the qualities of friends, whether they are close or not. A person must not under any circumstances react with sadness to the loss of friends due to the above berserk-driving move.
  
  
• Finally, a person should understand that friends are people not property, and that having friends is a blessing not a contract, If a friend should disappear and come back for any reason, then the person must accept them back (but not necessarily in the bedside drawer).

God bless all my 403 friends and those who are not on Facebook!

Technorati Tags: Friends,The Thoery of Friends